Scientists have identified a biochemical abnormality behind the potentially fatal neurodegenerative Machado-Joseph disease (MJD) and, using several models of the disease, were able to reverse the problem in what may be a crucial step towards a cure for humans.  Currently, the disease is incurable and the patients’ increasing neurodegeneration cannot be stopped. 

Schrödinger’s cat is in a quantum superposition of two states, namely |Dead> and |Alive>. If we open the box and find the cat dead, where is the living one? You all know the answer: In the ‘parallel universe’ where I pull the cat out alive. Let me add a twist that only a true cat hater can come up with.

Arctic Ice May 2011

The great thing about the scientific method is that we can figure out what will happen if we do something before we do it.  Scientists figured out long ago that burning fossil fuels and putting CO2 into the atmosphere at a great rate would affect the planet's climate systems.  Which it has.  One of the predictions about the effect of dumping CO2 into the atmosphere was that the Arctic would be affected most.  Which it has been.  Scientists predicted an Arctic acceleration or amplification: a process where positive feedbacks become ever stronger with ever less Arctic ice.  Ice loss is accelerating.

Too many older adults are taking "excessive" doses of drugs for thyroid problems and that has been linked to an increased risk of fractures, according to a new study.   The study raises concern that treatment targets may need to be modified in the elderly. 

Obese mothers are putting babies at risk for iron deficiency, which could affect infant brain development, according to research presented today at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting in Denver.

In non-pregnant adults, obesity-related inflammation hinders the transport of iron through the intestine, increasing the risk of iron deficiency anemia. When a woman is pregnant, iron is transferred through the intestine to the placenta, but it is not known how maternal obesity affects newborn iron status. Fetal iron status is important because 50 percent of the iron needed for infant growth is obtained before birth.

Have you ever noticed that you function better when you feel comfortable and confident in your surroundings and that when you are unsure of yourself, you are more likely to stumble? The same is true for our kids. In their element, where they are sure of all the important variables and comfortable expressing themselves, they make better eye contact, engage more willingly in communication, show attachment, and function at their best.

Remove them from their comfort zones and we have vastly different children. We have children who may have been singing at the top of their lungs only an hour before now displaying selective mutism when we take them somewhere new, or who were happy and cheerful now pensive and moving towards serious meltdown.

"A podcaster, an editor, a policy wonk and a NASA engineer walk into a bar..."  At the DCSWA workshop, regional media talents attempted to answer the unanswerable: what is the future of science writing and science journalism?

Deborah Ager (of Bolt and also ClickWisdom), noted, without irony, that "in 2011, everyone is a newspaper (or thinks they are)".